


Marked for Demolition

by HankTalking



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Gen, Medication, Past Medical Torture, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:33:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28721415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HankTalking/pseuds/HankTalking
Summary: Soldier and Demo can barely take care of themselves, let alone another person. Somehow they make do.
Relationships: Demoman/Soldier (Team Fortress 2)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 30
Collections: Boots 'n Bombs Fanfiction





	Marked for Demolition

Demo tried to ignore the muttering that hung thick in the cramped apartment, a difficult task when trying to focus on any other sensory input—say for instance, sight—was made problematic by the fact that at least half the dwelling was wreathed in grainy darkness, nestling everywhere save a few feet in front of him. Soldier liked it that way, regardless of whether it made packing a right pain, leaving Demo to keep kicking over empty soup cans as he shuffled between the door and what could only be describes as the depths of insanity. Demo grit his teeth as he banged into the overturned couch for the fourth time, the new pain in his toe joining the growing wooziness from the afternoon’s inebriation. The owner himself—though Demo had found out recently that “owner” wasn’t an accurate descriptor at all since it turned out Soldier had actually just been squatting in this place the whole time, a fact he had never deigned to share with Demo or anyone else—walked up to one of the boarded windows, peeking through the cracks in the plywood. It was the fifth time he’d done that in the last half hour.

There was a grumble. The word “yuppies” might have bubbled past Soldiers lips as he glared out through fringe of his helmet and to the world beyond, but before Demo could call him back with an irate reminder, he pulled away from his peephole and continued with the packing he’d supposedly brought Demo along to help with. _Help_ might have been how he’d described it, but as the day wore on it became clear Demo was the only one doing any actual real work. Despite the fact that the building was marked for demolition—seriously, Demo was a little abashed he hadn’t realized it before, what with the fact that there were no appliances save for a single mini fridge and the plaster was gone in more places than it existed—Soldier couldn’t seem to act with any urgency. The boxes of magazines and various weapons piled up next to the door, Demo fumbled around in the darkness because Soldier insisted the Russians could see him from space if he turned on his single naked bulb, and Soldier paced back and forth along the concrete. Demo’s eye twitched.

“Jesus Jane,” he finally snapped as Soldier accosted the window for the sixth time. “Go take your pills, man.”

Soldier jerked, as though he’d forgotten Demo was there. Maybe he had. He certainly did seem dead to the immediate vicinity, even with how paranoid he was of what lay beyond. “I am fine,” he grunted sharply. “I do not need them.”

“You’re as twitchy as a fox and you’re wearing a hole in the bloody floor,” Demo replied. “Go take your pills.”

He was supposed to taking them daily, but Demo had the feeling that unless the Demoman was around to remind him, he would conveniently “forget” about the little bottle crammed in the corner of his fridge.

Demo watched, making sure that Soldier’s shoulders slouched in resignation as he shuffled away from the window. It had never been a _huge_ hassle—at least, not in the way Demo was used to Soldier making things a hassle if he really didn’t want to go through with them—but that didn’t mean it was a walk in the park either. Demo had, correctly, guessed that today would be a day when he’d need to pull out all the stops if he was to get through the combined forces of both moving _and_ his best friend. He drained his current bottle of scrumpy and set it next to the other four he’d already polished off.

“The bottled water, Jane,” Demo reminded him, cracking the lid on another. “Tap’s what got you sick in the first place, remember?”

Soldier, with a mug partway to the sink, lowered it. “Right. Yeah.”

He did remember, Demo just had to nudge a little bit. Of course, that didn’t mean that soon as he got thirsty again he’d go right back to forgetting about the horrid case of lead poisoning he’d recovered from not a month before. Demo took a swig.

After making sure Soldier had swallowed down the medication, he offered, “great. Let’s get back to it then, aye?”

If he was being honest with himself, Demo doubted the pills actually did anything. Soldier’s mannerisms hardly changed when he took them, and if the man’s self-reporting could be believed then he didn’t feel any different either, just took them because it made Pauling happy. Mostly likely a misdiagnosis then. Not surprising, considering Demo was under the impression you were supposed to visit a shrink multiple times until you found something that worked, not just run in and scream until the nervous little psychologist wet himself and crammed a bottle of whatever into your hands just to make you go away. Demo had come along on that visit, had seen the buildup to the whole thing as Soldier just got jumpier and jumpier the longer they were in the hospital. It was the nurses that did it, Demo thought. Every time they passed the two waiting men in those itchy fabric seats, Soldier would tense like a bowstring, not letting out a breath until the woman in those distinctive uniforms has passed. It was almost inevitable how that whole affair had turned out.

“So,” Demo offered to fill the silence that was no longer occupied by Soldier’s murmurings to himself. “Where you heading after this?”

“Got a place lined up,” Soldier said, mostly to a shotgun he was staring at lovingly and then throwing into a box on top of a dozen more identical shotguns. “I found someone who needs a roommate.”

“Eh, good on ya,” Demo congratulated. “Going to beat rotting in _this_ place all alone.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, maggot?” Soldier said, turning sharply.

“Er.” Demo could immediately feel the precarious edges of the conversation appear just out of reach. They were there, known, but lost in darkness so he couldn’t quite tell how close he was to falling down a slippery slope. “Just…it’ll be good not to be squatting?”

Maybe he could have seen those edges better if his vision wasn’t narrowing, alcohol darkening the outline of his eye, leaving him to squint hard at Soldier just to see him as he leaned on a pile of garbage.

“Squatting!?” Soldier bellowed. “This apartment is mine! I have defended it from _multiple_ enemy incursions and by the three-year rule that makes it my legal property—not that jackass with the toupee!”

“…That the landlord, I’m guessing?”

“Call him what he is Tavish. An idiot! This complex is a fortress built to house those waging war against the ever encroaching forces of America’s enemies, bricks packed tight against the advance of communisms, walls barbed against any invading hot dog sales men! He should have been _proud_ to build such a monument to warfare! How dare he call it a ‘deathtrap not fit to house his worst enemies’? These barricades are _sturdy_ with-”

On _sturdy_ , he slapped some of the exposed brickwork, and a chunk of mortar came tumbling loose, most of its attached bricks falling with it.

“It’s a shithole Jane,” Demo’s pointed out. The headache that Soldier had been cultivating in Demo’s head all day did not make patience easy, especially with the scrumpy loosening his tongue as well. “Gah, I’m so tired of putting up with this!”

“ _You’re_ tired?” Soldier snapped. “What do _you_ have to be tired about maggot? _I_ am the overly courageous worm being extracted from his apple home.”

“Tired of dealing with you! Tired of dealing with all your damn crap!” Demo dropped the box he was carrying, not actually a good idea in retrospect considering Soldier probably hadn’t bothered to put the safeties on all the contents. “You haul me all the way out here to do your damn dirty work and the only thing I got to show for it is a migraine. Why can’t you just make things easy for once?”

“Oh I bet you’d like if I was easier to handle wouldn’t you,” Soldier snarled, his voice suddenly low. “The damn fucking pills! Every time I offend your damn _sensibilities_ it’s the fucking pills, all the goddamn time, ever since we went and got them. Can’t even have a conversation with you anymore because you want me _docile_.”

The irritation and the rage sang out inside Demo until they compounded into one indistinguishable emption, words spilling in ways he knew he should have thought better about. “Well if the alternative is you nearly killing us by taking our car off a bridge because _tires are full of air and air floats_ , then yeah! Maybe I do!”

Soldier stormed forward, and at first Demo thought he was swaying as he walked, but that turned out to be the whole room that was a tilting. He gripped the nearest piece of furniture, a overturned table with a bowie knife duct taped underneath, and steadied himself as Soldier got in his face. “I knew it,” he growled, and Demo was just sober enough to startle at the sudden flint in his voice. An open ache. “ _I knew it_ this was all some- Well then fine. Go ahead and admit it. I got half my head under from this company-mandated crap and it turns out even you like me better that way. Bet you’d like me more if they just took a chunk out, wouldn’t you? If they held me down and put one of those ice picks right through my eye?”

This close, it was easy to see Soldier was shaking, the finger pointed at Demo’s nose wavering as Soldier’s voice broke. Demo felt his throat constrict as he realized his mistake, what he’d ended up saying to a man who was always one misstep away from losing everything.

“Ach, shit, I didn’t mean _that_ Jane,” Demo said, looking away. “You _know_ I didn’t mean anything like that.”

“Do I?” Soldier breathed heavily. They were practically in each other’s faces now, inches away, and Demo could see the lock in the Soldier’s jaw. “Do I really know one day I won’t be too much for you?”

Demo very suddenly wished he hadn’t stared on that sixth bottle. He wasn’t sober enough to come up with the right apology, to backtrack up the mountain to where they’d been tense but not angry like they had a few minutes ago. “You’re- you’re never too much for me Jane. I’m not enough for you, is what it is.” He shook his head, trying to find something that would let Soldier know he was sorry. “I know I should have more patience than I do, always snapping and shit. All that…all that wasn’t called for. I’m sorry.”

Soldier pulled back slightly, moderately less furious. That gave Demo a bit of hope, until he felt a growing pressure behind his eye and realized one of his drunken sob-fests was coming on. Mortifying. No wonder Soldier looked uncomfortable—he hated when Demo cried to begin with, now a breakdown made Demo like he was trying to guilt Soldier out of being angry.

He looked away in shame. “Sorry, sorry I’ve just been- Just been hitting the bottle a little hard today.” He wiped at his nose. “I mean, look at me, can barely take care of myself, let alone anyone else. You’re a good man Jane, you deserve a better friend.”

“N-no, no I deserve you,” Soldier fumbled, dropping a hand that had failed to make it all the way to Demo’s shoulder as his words caught around his movements. “Wait, I did not mean it like that.”

Tavish didn’t look at him. He’d rather just close his eye and make the world go away. “No you don’t. You should have someone good in your life, who doesn’t talk about not liking you just because you made a mistake. Whatever poor soul I belong with must have done something real terrible to earn _me_.”

“Tavish,” Soldier said, this time managing to grab his side with conviction. “You are going to lie down now.”

“Wah?” Demo finally looked up, but only in confusion. “But we still got so many boxes…”

“I see those empties you’re hiding, private. Six is a lot, even for you. Come on.”

At first, Demo didn’t want to be dragged, especially when he’d done such a horrid job at apologizing, but then he noticed that his face was awfully wet and decided he had to go along out of pure shame. He didn’t remember going horizontal, didn’t even remember entering Soldier’s room, though as he knew he must have been set down there since that was where he woke. The flittering light from outside was completely gone now, though instead of being boarded up, the bedroom’s window was covered with a thin blanket supported on one end by a nail through its corner and the other by a glob of chewing gum.

Demo sat up and rubbed his eye.

He’d certainly had worse hangovers, but not many. The water bottle shoved in his hands was a moderate relief, and his head ached too much to realize the significance of it until a half hour later when he finally muscled up the strength to look at the Soldier situated next to the mattress.

“Thanks,” was all Demo managed to say.

“Don’t mention it.”

They sat there in silence, Demo breaking into another water bottle as he tried to flush his system with things besides hops. It eased his headache enough that he was able to sit up and push himself against the wall.

“I am sorry,” Soldier interjected in the stilted air. “That was an un-soldierly thing to accuse you of back there. I know- I know you’re nothing like them.”

Demo poked at the fragments of things in his mind, knowing enough from the stories Soldier had told him that he could combine that with the rest of what he knew. He shook his head. “It was…It was a fair thing to say, based on everything.”

“No it wasn’t,” Soldier said in a voice that was meant to be the end of the discussion.

“…Well I understand why you did.”

Another pause hung between them, until Soldier said, “Tavish. I do not want you to drink because of me.”

“Hm. Well then I’ll probably need to find another excuse to drink then, eh?” Demo joked meekly.

“You know what I mean.” Soldier narrowed his eyes, and only then did Demo realize his helmet was resting on the floor next to him. “And. And I do not want you to say those things about yourself. If someone else said them I would kick the crap out of ‘em, but since it’s you I can’t do that.”

“I…” Demo didn’t know how to twist that one into something funny. In the end, he quietly finished with an, “aye, I’ll try. I think we both need to work on being better for each other.”

“Wish it were that damn simple. But yeah, we can try.”

Demo crinkled the plastic water bottle and was about to throw it in with the rest of the trash when he realized said pile no longer existed. “Ah jeez, you move everything out already?”

“Affirmative! You have been unconscious for several hours and the demolition crew will be here soon.”

“Crap,” Demo said, struggling to swing his legs off the mattress. “Can’t believe I almost slept through a building being bulldozed on top of me.”

“Don’t worry son. If you were still asleep when they arrived, I would have carried you out.”

“Aye? What about the mattress?”

“If it came down between a mattress and my best friend, I hope you know I would have chosen you.”

Demo grinned, taking the hand offered and staggering to his feet. Face still sore, eyelashes still sticking together, he swung an arm around Soldier’s shoulders. “Let’s get out of here. Though, if you don’t mind, I’d like to stick around for at least a _little_ while, see how these amateurs get things done…”


End file.
